


somewhere in between

by nightlarry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fate has a morbid sense of humor, Fluff, Grim Reapers, Harry almost dies a lot, Light Angst, Louis hates his job, Louis is Death/The Grim Reaper, M/M, i don't even know honestly, me messing up with lots of folklore and basically making up my own
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightlarry/pseuds/nightlarry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis made a deal with the Grim Reaper when he was eight years old that, ten years later, turned his eyes black and gave him the ability to kill a person with a touch or save them from death. </p><p>In other words, he becomes Death at the age of eighteen.</p><p>He's got enough in his plate at the moment, what with having to choose if random people get to live to see another day or not, attending university, and maintaining a façade of normalcy for his family and his roommate. A pretty boy with green eyes and soft curls isn't something that should add to the stress of being the Grim Reaper, but it is.</p><p>[or, Louis is Death, Harry makes him feel things, and Fate is a dick]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: How Eight Year Old Louis made a stupid deal

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where i'm going with this, but oh well. Let's see what happens.

Louis has no idea of how it works.

He remembers dying at some point when he was just a little boy. He was in school, in kindergarten, he thinks, playing footie during recess with his friends. He remembers that moment just barely—it's all a bit fuzzy, really. It feels like it was a lifetime ago—and well, maybe it was, technically, but whatever—, so it's all a bit blurred around the edges, and Louis now views the event as if he were a mere outsider.

So yes, he was playing footie with his friends in the playground. There was a teacher somewhere supervising the game and making sure everything was fine, as was her duty. Eight year old Louis was a pain in the arse, Louis knows this. He’s been told countless times by different people (his mum, his step-father, his sisters, his neighbors, his teachers; he was never the best behaved child), but this is the event that Louis dubs ‘The Height of Eight-Year-Old-Pain-In-The-Arse-Louis,’ because the series of events that followed that footie match were, well, a pain in the arse for the entire universe. _Literally._ The universe had to deal with Nick's retirement and giving Louis the job. It was plenty complicated.

Louis was kicking the ball, very concentrated on scoring a goal and making all of his classmates cheer, but then some other kid appeared out of nowhere and stole the ball from him. Louis didn’t pout, no, because eight year olds don’t pout, you see, but Louis _did_ scream a very rude word that the teacher nearby thankfully hadn’t caught—or maybe not ‘thankfully,’ because if the teacher had caught it, Louis would’ve been pulled from the match and made to sit next to her in punishment while everyone else kept playing. That would've saved everyone a lot of trouble. Of course, Fate had plans, and those plans required Louis to keep playing, so the teacher had remained oblivious and Louis went and chased after the ball like nothing had happened.

Louis watched the kid kick the ball to the other side of the small field, and with some anger, made his way towards the opposite end, not even in the mood to play anymore. What was the point of playing if his team didn’t win? Because obviously this other kid would score a goal and it would all be doomed. So Louis made his way to the goalie for his team, Liam, and stood near the pole that marked the goal area. “This is boring.”

“It’s not.” Liam had said calmly, brown eyes focused on the ball even though it was on the other side of the field. “It’s fun.”

“We’re going to lose.”

“So? We’ll win tomorrow.” Liam had said easily, attention mostly focused on the ball and only a tiny fraction paying attention to his friend. Louis had rolled his eyes.

“It’s not fun if I don’t have the ball.” Louis had whined, and that was the last thing he’d said during that lifetime, which, really, lamer last words have probably never been spoken.

Liam had screamed “Lou! Watch out!” and Louis barely had time to turn and see the black and white ball flying to his face with more force than any eight year old should be able to kick with—Louis still curses that kid, Evan, who had been pulled back a year and was taller and stronger than everyone else in his grade—, and the rest, Louis remembers watching through a different set of eyes.

“You’re dead, kid.” Someone had said, and Louis remembers being startled because he literally had a soccer ball flying to his face just moments ago, and now he’s standing on the sidelines of the small field. He turned to his right, to where the voice was coming from, and was confronted by a tall figure. The man was dressed in a black t-shirt and black skinny jeans, his hair was tall and his skin was sickly pale.

“What’s happening? Who are you?” Louis had asked, looking from the stranger and back to the field. Everything was moving in slow motion. The ball was still in the air, Liam was still standing the in the goal, and all the players were still in their positions. _Louis_ was standing next to the pole, and his eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly open in surprise. “Why am I here and there at the same time?”

Needless to say, eight-year-old-Louis was confused.

“Because you’re about to die.” The tall man had said, sounding perhaps a bit tired, Louis thinks. “That ball is going to hit you in the face and send you flying against that pole.” The man had said, waving a hand, pointing from the ball to the pole as if to make it easier to understand. “And you’ll crack your skull.”

Louis had blinked at the scene. Perhaps he should’ve been scared, but how could he have been, when it all seemed more like a funny dream? He was looking at _himself_ as if there were two of him.

“My mum will be very upset.” Was what had first come out of his mouth after the shocking revelation that he would be dead in a matter of seconds. “And my sisters too. They will cry.”

“That they will.” The tall man had said, and Louis had turned to look at him again. He was looking down at him, his eyes black and frankly, a bit frightening. Louis had never seen black eyes before. He had seen brown eyes, but never black. “I’m Nick.”

“I’m Louis.”

“I can offer you a deal.” Nick had said, and Louis had blinked up at him, unsure of what to say. “So you don’t die.”

“You can’t do that. You’re not God.” Louis had said, moving his eyes back to the scene in the football field. The ball was closer to the second Louis’ face now, and it was moving very slowly even closer.

“Oh, kid. You know absolutely nothing,” Nick had said, and Louis had snapped his eyes back towards him again, frowning. He didn’t like his intelligence to be insulted. He was very smart, thank you very much. “God doesn’t choose who dies or who lives. Death does.”

“Death?” Louis had echoed, and Nick had nodded. “So what, you’re Death?”

“Yes.” Nick shrugged, like this wasn’t an important detail. “Not for long, though, hopefully. I’m too old, kid. I need to retire.”

The ball was even closer to the other Louis now.

“Then do.”

“I need a replacement, you see? I need to find someone willing, train them to do my job, and _then_ I can retire and live among gods and spirits in peace.”

Louis had no idea of how to reply to that. The other Louis was going to die very soon, and Louis couldn’t focus on anything else. There was something like fear settling in his tummy, and he didn’t like it.

“I’m offering you to take my place. If you take it, you won’t die.”

“What?”

“The dynamics of it are a bit weird, way too complicated for an eight year old,” Nick had said, and Louis was about tell him about how he had landed in the honor roll of his classroom, but Nick kept speaking, “so I will leave you alone for some time. I’ll come back, though, and train you. Then you can take over the whole thing.”

It seemed simple enough. Nick made it sound easy, didn’t even describe the job, really, just offered Louis a chance to _not_ die. It was an easy decision, really, when eight-year-old-Louis imagined his mum crying, and his sisters Lottie and Fizzy crying too, and his step-father crying, and his friends crying, and everyone crying. Louis didn’t like crying, you see.

“Okay.”

“You will die for a second, because the ball will hit you, but then you’ll come back. You'll be fine.”

And then Nick was gone.

Louis saw the ball picking up speed, like the slow motion had disappeared, and he saw the ball hit the other Louis straight in the face, and send him flying backwards. Louis saw the other Louis’ head hit the pole behind him, heard a very awful noise, and then it all flashed black, like someone had switched the lights off.

When Louis had opened his eyes again, he was in a hospital room, and everyone was crying and Louis felt a little bit weird, but it was fine. He was alive, and his mum was crying happy tears, so that was fine.

He had just made a deal with Death, of course, but that was the farthest thing from his mind.

 

****

 

Nick had returned when Louis was sixteen, eight years after he had died. It had been Louis’ birthday for exactly two seconds (Louis had watched the green numbers on his alarm clock switch to mark 12:00 barely a heartbeat ago), and Nick was suddenly standing in front of him, dressed in all black and with his hair as tall as ever, still looking ghostly pale.

“Hello Louis.”

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Am I about to die again?” Louis had asked, and Nick had shaken his head.

“I’m here to fullfill my promise.”

That night, Louis had gotten an explanation.

Death, or Grim Reaper, as Louis preferred because it had a nicer ring than just ‘Death’, was in charge of collecting souls and guiding them either to heaven or hell. That was it. That was the job. Guiding souls to the ‘other side’.

The trickier part, as Nick had explained, was the morality of it. He had to choose whether a person deserved to spend eternity in heaven, or if their bad deeds were enough to condemn them to hell until the end of time. Even then, Louis didn’t need to do much. Most souls found their way on their own, and the Grim Reaper didn’t need to help at all, so he didn’t need to pop up with every new dead soul.

But, occasionally, Nick had said, things are even a bit more complicated than that, and that’s when the real job begins.

He had demonstrated that some days later, during New Years.

Louis was in his room one second, and the next, he was standing in front of a bus, with a little girl on one side of him and Nick on the other.

“This girl is nine years old. Her name is Maddie.” Nick had said. “It’s not her time to die. I set up a different time for her, but something went wrong. The system is deeply flawed, Louis.”

Louis, to this day, still doesn’t understand how that works completely. Sometimes God, Fate, or whatever other force that’s out there, doesn’t plan things right, and someone’s destiny gets tangled with another’s in a tragic way, leading to untimely deaths. How God, Fate, whoever else, can mess up like this is something Louis will never understand. He doesn’t know how they choose the way someone’s life will go—perhaps they just go with what they like most; Fate sure seems like the type to push someone in front of a bus for the shits and giggles, if her slightly manic demeanor is anything to go by—but however it is they choose it, they surely should be more careful and keep lives from crossing in dangerous ways.

“So let’s move her out of the bus’ way.” Louis had said, naïvely. It seemed like an easy enough task, especially considering time was frozen and Louis could just lift the girl and move her to the sidewalk.

Nick had shaken his head and clicked his tongue. “See, Louis, messing with Fate has some consequences.” Louis has heard of this infamous Fate countless times—some girl with flowers in her hair and bright yellow eyes who likes to skip around the world and mess with people’s lives. Louis had met her, even, two days after his birthday, during his time with Nick. Fate had giggled in his face and told him he’d make a great Grim Reaper. Louis had taken it as a good sign.

“What consequences?”

“Well, the bus is still going to hit her.” Nick explained. “And her life will be affected after it one way or another. Either she’s going to go, or she’s going to suffer for staying. Fate doesn’t like it when we mess up with her things, and she takes them out on the poor folk we save.”

“So what, she ends up paralytic?” Louis had inquired, feeling something weird twist in his gut. Something like guilt. He didn’t like this job so much any more—not that he ever did, considering he was going to be Death and all, but it didn’t seem as bad before—, he didn’t like the idea of deciding the girl’s life.

“That’s one possible outcome. Or, Fate doesn’t care and the girl walks away with a few bruises.”

“So we have to choose?”

“Yes.” Nick had said, then pulled a rolled up piece of paper from the pocket of the jacket he was currently wearing. He handed it over to Louis, who unrolled the paper carefully. It was longer than it originally looked like, hitting the floor and going as far as touching the bus’ wheels. “This is what she was originally destined to.”

Louis skims over the list, over the ‘ballerina’, ‘wins national competition’, ‘gets married at twenty eight’, ‘has three children’, ‘dies at seventy three’. “Do I get to choose, then?”

Nick had only nodded.

“Let her live.”

And that was that. He was off the street then, with Nick at his side, and he watched the bus hit the little girl, blood splattering the floor and the cracking of a broken bone echoing in his ears.

The bus stopped, and then there’s people running towards the girl.

“Look at the list.”

Louis did.

There, under ‘gets married at twenty eight’, something in red had been written: _permanent injury in left leg. Can't ever be a proper ballerina. Overdoses on sleeping pills. Suffers from depression._

“What the fuck?” Louis had asked, his eyes wide and dropping the list. Surely Fate wouldn’t be as cruel. How could she be so quick?

“Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes their lives just go on their regular course.” Nick had said, as if it was somehow comforting. “Don’t worry. You won’t feel as guilty as time goes by.”

 

****

 

When Louis turned eighteen, after two years of tagging along with Nick and exploring his new powers as the future Grim Reaper, Louis woke up with black eyes instead of blue and a black mark on his wrist.

There was only a note on the table next to his bed.

_‘Don’t be too stupid. Good luck. -Nick’_


	2. The irony of death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> where am i even going with this

Louis likes tea, you see. He doesn’t even mind queuing for ten minutes to get his tea in Starbucks. The way he sees it, being late to his uni classes isn’t a big deal. He has a job set for eternity anyways, there’s no need to worry about finding a job in the real world. Louis doesn’t even need money. He can get everything he wants with a wave of the hand, _literally_ , but he’d rather not do that. Magic has consequences, or so Nick said, and Louis would rather not deal with Fate and her shenanigans in retribution for messing up with the balance of the universe.

It takes him fifteen minutes to reach the counter, order his tea to a scarily cheery barista, and to end up standing next to Fate.

Louis just rolls his eyes when he spots her, standing before the counter, dressed in a flowy skirt and a shirt that doesn't cover her belly button, with flowers tangled up in her braided hair. “You probably shouldn’t be here.”

Fate smiles. “You don’t have exclusivity to Starbucks, Lou. Don’t be silly.”

Louis spares a glance to the rest of the coffee shop—it’s very small and it’s filled to the brim with tired-looking students, and there’s chatter filling up Louis’ ears and the smell of coffee encompassing him. He would claim exclusivity to Starbucks if he could. They have lovely shops.

“What are you doing here? You don’t usually bother me unless you want something.” Louis says, his voice neutral and blending into the chatter going on around him.

Fate laughs, a sound like chiming bells and tinkling glass. “I do enjoy your company, you know?”

Louis allows himself a little smirk. “I can’t blame you. I _am_ delightful company.”

“The best!” Fate shrikes in a way that makes a couple of heads turn to look. Louis only smiles at that. Fate is a bit strange. She’s loud and bubbly and excitable, like a small child, or a puppy. She finds most things fascinating, and has a knack for meddling in things that aren’t her business, as one would expect fate to do. “But as it turns out, I do require of your services.”

Louis spots his cup on the other side of the counter, sitting behind four others in queue to be prepared. He would sigh if it weren’t considered rude. “What do you want?”

“There’s someone dying tonight.” Fate says casually, and Louis hopes no one nearby heard, because that sure would sound suspicious to anyone. “And I don’t want him to die. Yet.”

Fate has asked him this before, once. You see, as powerful and almighty as Fate is, with the power to dictate people’s lives and all, she _can’t_ decide when someone dies. That’s Louis’ job, even if he’s not directly writing up every single person’s date. It’s complicated.

“Why not?” He asks as casually as one can when asked to alter something they’ve already decided upon. Louis might not be directly involved with the dates, but he does supervise occasionally, to make sure everything is in order and not many people are dying at the age of a hundred and three or minutes after being born.

“I have plans for this person.” Fate says. “Recently concocted plans. His death would ruin my fun.”

“People are not your toys.” Louis chastises softly. He takes his job very seriously. A girl with a funny hair style won’t make him play with people.

“They _are_. You haven’t been in the game long enough to see it, but you will soon. They are nothing but things for us to play with, Lou.”

He wants to argue that, but in a way, Louis knows she’s right. They decide how humans live their lives. Fate decides the most important things, decides when they meet their soulmates and how they get that job promotion and any other event that shapes their lives in an important manner. Louis decides when that life ends. Humans are the billions of toys they have at their disposal.

The thing is, Louis chooses to view it differently. He likes to think he still has some sense of humanity in him, even if he’s been doing this for five years. He sees the world different than he did when he was a child, and things will absolutely never be the same, but Louis _knows_ he still has some humanity in him.

He has a mum, five sisters and a brother that keep him from floating away the same way Nick did, the same way Fate did. He’s still here, not human physically, but with some humanity _in_ him. Nick grew detached from humans, was nothing more than someone with too much power at his fingertips, and Fate is nothing but a girl with a sense of humor. Louis has living relatives still, has a reason to not grow cold, cynical, and detached just yet. At least not completely. Because Louis wouldn’t be able to do what he does without a sense of distance.

He doesn’t see humans as toys merely because he has a family that’s very much human, very much _mortal._ He wouldn’t toy with them, so he won’t toy with anyone else. Simple logic.

It’s not wise to mess with Fate, though. Fate could push one of his sisters off a cliff, or make his little brother suffer until his death. Louis is selfish, whatever.

“Who?”

Fate breaks into purple-lipped a grin. The lipstick colour is vaguely similar to one Fizzy has worn before. “Name’s Harry Styles.”

“And?” Louis prompts, watching as his empty tea cup advances two spots on the queue to be prepared.

“And, he is supposed to attend a concert tonight and suffocate in the crowd.”

“That’s dumb.” Louis points out unhelpfully.

Fate shrugs. “I get bored. You give the time, I give the scenario.”

Louis considers this for a moment. He can't exactly just wave a hand and change the date (okay, he _can_ , but there's more to the process than _just_ that), and surely Fate is reasonable and understands this. “I need time, love. I can't just decide not to kill someone all of a sudden.”

Deciding to not kill someone alters _everything_ . It messes with the balance of the universe in itself. This person was supposed to go, but they don't. They keep breathing, keep moving, keep eating, keep meeting people, keep _intervening._ That's when accidents happen—a person that isn't supposed to exist will have to adapt, will have to take up space that they weren't supposed to.

It's complicated. Keeping someone alive who was supposed to die is complicated. Louis needs to fix a lot of things if he's going to do this. The last time he did, he had three separate accidents in just two months. This person shouldn't have existed, shouldn't have been driving down the road and shouldn't have hit the woman. Two other similar events happened, and Louis is sure he'll have some more events like this one at some point.

“Sure you can.” Fate says. “Just get him out of the way.”

That's an unusual request, too. It's one thing to move the time of death of someone's who's due to die in a week (it's still complicated; if it were easy, the people Louis cares about would never have to die—all sort of rules are involved), but someone who's due tonight is a bit trickier. Things are in motion already. Being asked to directly, _physically_ intervene, though, that's new.

Louis narrows his eyes at the girl. Fate is smiling innocently, all teeth and rosy cheeks. “Please?”

“You're asking me to go to this concert,” Louis raises an eyebrow, and regrets that his tea isn't here yet. He could escape if he weren't waiting for his tea. “And find this Harry Styles, whoever he is, and make sure he doesn't die.”

“Pretty much.” The girl says, popping the P in the first word.

“Why would I do that? I have things to do tonight.”

“You don't need to study for your test. You'll ace it anyway.”

“What the hell are you planning?” He inquires, and Louis knows Fate knows she's already won, because she bounces a little in place and claps her hands.

“Something very fun.”

 

****

 

Louis spends his sociology class half in the classroom and half in his head. He's more distracted than he usually is, his mind wandering in a million directions at once, tiny little pieces of him flying everywhere and nowhere at once.

Suffocating during a concert, honestly. Fate needs to retire already and stop causing freak deaths. Last week someone got electrocuted in the shower. And it was out of time, to make matters worse. Louis had given the girl an earful about it, but ultimately decided to let the person die and promptly sent them to heaven for their troubles.

He considers how to prevent a stampede in a concert, of all places, where there are a lot of people gathered. He can't control that many people without having to mess around with some magic, and he's not up for that. So that's out. The other, more viable option, is to prevent Harry himself from getting caught up in it. That seems infinitely easier. He just needs to find him and stop him from dying. Easy peasy. It's the opposite from his job as Death, but oh well.

Whatever Fate is planning better be good.

 

****

 

When Louis arrives to the tiny flat he rents with Liam, it smells of burnt food and if Louis’ body were slightly more human, his stomach would churn uncomfortably.

“Do I need to call the fire department again?” He asks loudly, because Liam could be on the other side of the flat. He doesn't worry about Liam inhaling toxic fumes or setting himself on fire, because he knows Liam will live until he’s sixty eight.

“It's under control!” His lifelong friend calls from where Louis assumes is the kitchen. “The window is open and nothing was destroyed!”

Louis chuckles, gathering the envelopes sitting on the table next to the door. Bills, bills, more bills, a coupon, another bill. He hopes Liam won't bring them up, because when he does, he always insists on paying half of the ones that regard the flat. Louis would rather he not, because he knows how hard Liam works and how he's saving up for a car. Plus, Nick left everything he owned to Louis, so he's got several properties to his name and four bank accounts with enough money to last him at least a couple of centuries.

Liam doesn't know that, of course. He doesn't need to. It would disturb the careful illusion Louis has crafted for himself, the delicate façade of a regular university student coming from a middle class family. He pretends to have a regular, human job and everything.

“What's for lunch?” He asks as he walks into the kitchen, eyes scanning the area quickly to asses the damage. The room is a little bit cloudy with smoke, but nothing too bad.

Liam is sitting in the small, four-person table they have in the side of the room, pressed against the wall so it actually fits only three chairs. He's flipping through a book aimlessly, presumably trying to study.

“Nothing. Unless you want burnt chicken?”

Louis wouldn't care. It's not like he needs to eat anyway. He once went an entire month without tasting food, just to see how far he could go, until he decided it was pointless and he missed the simple pleasure that was eating.

“We could order take out. Chinese?”

Liam’s eyebrows raise, but he doesn't look up from his book, despite the fact that he's literally passing from one page to the next in a matter of seconds. “That sounds great. There's some money in my—”

“Underwear drawer. I know.” Louis doesn't plan to go anywhere near that drawer. “I’ll order, then. Great study session, by the way.”

Louis gets a pen thrown his way, but he manages to duck just in time to avoid being hit, laughing as he does.

He orders Chinese, pulls out his laptop, and begins his research.

First he needs to find any concerts happening in town tonight. Then he needs to find out who Harry Styles even is.

The first thing is easy. A quick Google search directs him to a concert of some band he's never heard of (that's probably just because he hasn't paid much attention to music lately), he buys a ticket for it, because sneaking past security sounds like tedious work.

Once that's done, he switches tabs and takes a second to scan the home screen of his Facebook profile. There's nothing even remotely interesting, so he moves on to the important things. He types up ‘Harry Styles’ into the search bar, and watches at a list comes up with more ‘Harry Styles’s than he has the energy to sort through. Thanks for nothing, Mark Zuckerberg.

So he does the next best thing: nothing.

He is _Death_ , and he can sense _death_. He will arrive at the concert and just follow his instincts. He doesn't need to make a fuzz about this. He'll find Harry Styles without knowing what he looks like.

Chinese food arrives, and Louis pays for it, glad that most of the smell of burnt food is gone. He and Liam chat a bit, about classes, about Sophia, about upcoming exams. When Louis mentions the concert, Liam frowns a little bit but disguises it quickly, and Louis regrets not buying two tickets instead of just one. He’ll make it up to Liam.

The venue isn't too far away. It's big and filled to the brim with people, even when the show is a little over an hour from starting. Louis passes the time people-watching, intruding in couples kissing, in friends shrieking in excitement, in fathers chasing after daughters.

Louis finds humans fascinating. Mostly because his own humanity is still so fresh, just five years in the past. Louis has a family and has Liam still, but for how much longer? He hasn't changed a bit since he was eighteen, not physically at least, and Nick had warned him—he needed to leave before they started asking questions. Louis will never bring his sisters to a concert, because he's too busy keeping up a façade in university to return home, nor he will ever get to kiss someone on the lips the way couples do. He enjoys watching, though, is endlessly fascinated by all of these things that he cannot have.

He's had plenty of time to adjust, five entire years. He’s fine now. He might be a tad bit too cynical and perhaps more detached than he should, but he’s fine. It’s better this way, at least. Nick had advised him to put up some distance between his mortal life and his new one, because Louis would live for centuries and would have enough time to heal when the people he cares about passed away, but the people he cares about have seventy years or so in this world, and they won’t heal the same way.

Louis prefers to see his sisters occasionally, to text them every weekend and to talk to his mother only the necessary amount, so that when it is his time to leave, in only five years or so, they won’t hurt as much, won’t feel his absence too much.

Liam is a whole other story. Liam is Louis being selfish, Louis needing company and a necessary mean to his façade of normalcy. Liam and Louis have been the best of friends since they met in kindergarden, and Louis would hate to end up without a soul to accompany him through his days.

Louis is startled from his thoughts by two separate things—the loud noise of an electric guitar echoing through the venue (not quite the start of the show yet, Louis thinks, perhaps just the opening band, because the entrance lacks the theatrics of a proper concert) and something like a shock running down his spine, causing him to sit straighter in his chair and the muscles in his neck to contract.

Louis directs his attention to the crowd gathered around the stage. It’s still very thin and sparse, but Louis can see them all moving closer to the stage as the song starts, like moths attracted to a flame. He imagines a thicker crowd later on, when the main band takes the stage, and can picture someone suffocating in the crowd. Perhaps it’s a kid, or someone very small.

Louis moves his head from side to side, rolling his shoulder blades as he does, trying to rid himself of some of the tension coursing through him. This is one of the worst parts, in his opinion. The feeling of _death_ crawling up his spine and filling his veins, crawling through every crevice of his body. Nick had warned him about it, said it would be awful for the first decade or so, but that he would grow numb to it eventually.

It happens when Louis is close to someone in their final moments. It happens when Louis decides someone should die in an accident that shouldn’t have occurred. Louis hates it.

He scans the crowd once more, this time more carefully, looking for anyone in distress. The Harry Styles kid could be dying already, and Louis wouldn’t be able to stop it from where he is sitting on the higher areas of the venue where the concert is taking place. No one seems to be dying yet, and Louis rolls his neck again in hopes of relieving some pressure. It doesn’t work. It never does.

Louis couldn’t explain it if he tried, the _pull_ towards death. All he knows is one second he’s sitting down, and the next he’s walking towards bathrooms. Harry Styles will be there, he knows.

Call it a sixth sense or magic or whatever, but of course Louis was right. Upon entering the bathroom, he sees only one other person in there (and Louis fleetingly wonders how that happened—them being the only two people in the bathroom of a concert venue—, maybe Fate was involved), a boy with chocolate coloured curls and green eyes, standing in front of the sinks and carding his fingers through his hair, as if trying to tame them.

They make eye contact through the mirror, and if Louis cared a bit more, he would blush at being caught staring. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Louis replies easily, his hands finding the pockets of his jeans and burrowing in them. How does he go about preventing the guy from getting into the crowd? “Would you consider leaving if I asked you to?”

The kid, Harry, really doesn't deserve the ‘kid’ title. He's taller than Louis, and he probably is at least eighteen years old, but he has such boyish features that Louis would rather not give him another moniker.

Harry, to his credit, doesn't seem very alarmed. “That's odd.”

“I know.” Louis nods, making his way to the sinks and settling next to Harry. He fiddles with his hair, if only to look like he had a purpose with coming here, other than prevent a death. “I have a bad feeling, s’all.”

Hopefully Harry is one of those people who believe in ‘bad feelings’. “Yeah?”

Louis nods and tries to think of something else to say, because clearly Harry isn't very convinced and is just humoring him. He sounds too calm to believe him. “We could grab a coffee, if you want.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at that, and from the corner of his eye, Louis catches him turning his head in his direction, hand stilled in his hair. There's a slightly frown in his face, the tiniest hints of a wrinkle in the space between his eyebrows. Louis stops fiddling and meets the boy’s eye and shoots him what he hopes is a nice smile.

“I don't know you.”

It's a reasonable excuse to let someone down. Louis did just sort of ask him out, or whatever, within exactly thirty seconds of meeting. Not even meeting—ending up in the same bathroom. Harry might think he's crazy.

“I’m Louis.” He says, putting out a hand and hoping his face is set on some pleasant expression, on something calm and charming. He hasn't flirted with anyone in _years_ , since he had a crush on the girl living down the street when he was fifteen, but he already got himself into this. He might as well go through with it.

Harry slowly grabs his hand and gives it a little shake, the frown still in his face. “Harry.”

“Well, what do you say? I hear the band isn't even that good live.” It's probably a weak argument, because Harry is wearing a hoodie with the band logo and is clearly a fan. “And I know a great coffee place nearby.”

“Is it a Starbucks, by any chance?” The boy asks, and the frown is no longer there, but something more similar to an amused glint in his eye. Louis doesn't know if he's being made fun of, or if this is working.

“You'll have to find out on your own.”

“I do love a good mystery.” Harry says, and Louis is very confused, but he doesn't plan on showing it. Harry's life literally depends on Louis’ ability to get him to abandon the concert venue, so he will sell this. He _will_ get Harry to accept the coffee invite. “I'd love to, but I did come here to see the band play. Maybe some other time.”

Louis feels a weight land on his gut as Harry shoots him a smile and promptly bypasses him, clearly making for an exit. He needs to think, and quickly.

He couldn't come up with anything though, and Harry had already exited the bathroom. So Louis went after him, ran a little bit until he fell into step with the boy, who chuckled when he spotted Louis. “A little persistent, aren't you?”

“Maybe,” Louis shrugs. He can see the crowd is getting thicker, and Harry is probably walking right into it. “Look, I know this sounds weird, but I really have a terrible feeling about this.”

“Is that why you want to invite me to coffee?” Harry asks, his pace steady and blissfully unaware of how little time he has left. Louis can feel it in the way the air around Harry feels thicker, in the way Louis’ body feels strung tight.

“Yes.” Louis admits. Perhaps honestly is better. He might be able to scare the boy with the green eyes and lovely curls into leaving the place. “And I'm rarely wrong, you know.”

“So what? I'm going to die?” There's a hint of humour in his voice and Louis has never been so outraged at someone mocking death.

“Probably.” Louis tries for casual.

“And you're trying to save my life.” Harry says it like an affirmation, nodding his head as if he's sure of this. It’s sort of true. Death is trying to save someone's life. It's hilarious. And ironic.

“I can trade your ticket for mine.” Louis offers. “I'm up in the stands. No crowds to suffocate you up there.”

Harry’s frown returns. “Oh. You're just trying to get my ticket, then.”

“No, no, no,” Louis tries quickly, because it's better for Harry to think that he's interested than to think that he's using him for a ticket. “I don't even know the band playing. I'm serious.”

Harry’s frown takes a second to disappear, but when it does, it's replaced by an expression of confusion. “You're really strange.”

“Thanks, mate.”

They've reached the stairs that will take Harry to the ground floor and that Louis won't be able to walk through without a ticket.

Harry fishes his out of his pocket and shows it to the guy standing there, who lets him through immediately. Louis doesn't like this one bit.

“It was nice to meet you, Louis.”

That… That failed miserably.

 

****

 

Louis is sitting in his chair while everyone around him is up and screaming. The lights have dimmed and the main band is clearly about to go on stage. The crowd moves towards the stage collectively, and Louis winces as he thinks of little, thin Harry in the crowd.

Louis feels the hour drawing closer with every second that passes. And he needs to act, _quickly,_ lest he wants Fate’s wrath on him.

He leaves his seat, walks down the stairs until he’s standing on the railing the separates the ground floor and the stands. He leans against the metal and vaguely hears someone behind him complaining about blocking his view, but he doesn't care.

He examines the stage for a second and considers what would be easier to mess with. Surely the band is prepared for any sort of mishap, so he'll have to choose wisely. Any instrument can be easily replaced, and the show would continue without further incident. And sometimes that's enough, sometimes just a small twist of events is enough to save or doom someone. But Louis wants to be thorough, wants to do this right.

He just causes a spark. He snaps a cable with a little bit of magic, makes up a spark, and watches as one of the gigantic speakers bursts into flames.

There are screams in the crowd.

Louis knows he could start a panic, he _will_ start a panic, but he doesn't allow himself to think of that.

A second speaker catches on fire, and the lights in the arena come back up. There's a voice in some alternative speakers asking the crowd to exit the venue orderly, to follow instructions of employees. Louis sees a curly head in the crowd, somewhere in the middle of it, and he feels a chill run down his spine when green eyes meet his.

Harry blinks, once, twice, and Louis can't look away. The crowd is dispersing, and it's better than Louis assumed it would. No one is running and no one seems to be caught in a human stampede. It's raining in the venue—well, not raining, but the sprinklers have burst through life, and it feels like rain. Louis’ body feels back to normal. No one is dying.

Harry's curls are damp now, and he's still looking straight at Louis.

He tries to smile, and he thinks he manages to do so, then tears his eyes away from the boy and follows a small crowd out of the venue.


End file.
